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THE battle over WorkChoices is raging in both the stratosphere
of economic argument and the "weeds" of individual electorates.
While John Howard and Kevin Rudd debate whether rolling back
WorkChoices would unleash inflation, high-profile union leader Bill
Shorten is doing the rounds of community and worker meetings, where
the talk is more likely to be about rights and fairness.

Shorten, running for Maribyrnong and regularly spoken of as a
Labor star-in-the-making, calls it the "off-Broadway" circuit.
Yesterday he took his one-man show to Cooma and Bungendore in the
bellwether Liberal seat of Eden-Monaro and to Goulburn (Hume and
safe Liberal).

Among about 20 people gathered in the dining room of the Royal
Hotel were Greg and Debbie Greenwood, who've been persuaded to
change their votes largely on the back of WorkChoices. Greg, 45, a
ranger with the Cooma Rural Lands Protection Board, has had some
experience of unfair dismissal laws. Sacked several years ago (pre
WorkChoices), he fought a case and got his job back. Now he's
convener of the Snowy Monaro Your Rights at Work group.

The Greenwoods say they've never voted Labor. Greg jokes he's
"from the squattocracy"; his family has several grazing properties
and his 83-year-old father is having a "pink fit" at his son
backing the ALP. "Last election there was no mention that Howard
was going to do away with your basic work rights  it's just
terrible," says Greg, who is also critical of the AWB scandal.
Debbie, 46, whose father and brother are in small business, says
she worries about job security "mainly for our children", aged 22,
19 and 17. "We're fairly OK. We don't have a mortgage any more, but
our kids are not going to be able to buy a house."

Shorten tells the meeting to expect a re-elected Coalition to go
further with harsh IR laws and indulge in "a fair bit of payback"
against the unionised section of the workforce. The fairness test
he writes off as "a bit of lipstick on an unpleasant piece of
legislation". Well known as what Kevin Rudd calls an economic
conservative, Shorten stresses the union movement accepts the
rights of business in relation to investment and employment "but
employees need to be empowered to have their voice heard".

"We are more than just the sum of our work," he says, repeating
several times that in this age of extended life expectancy, it's
all about living "longer lives full of meaning".

The on-Broadway show yesterday was relatively low key but with
some hazards. The ghost of Mark Latham walked, to Labor's
discomfiture, with a newspaper critique from the former leader;
Howard struggled to justify his "sorry" for higher interests rates
not being an "apology", and a passerby was skittled by the PM's
media entourage.

The off-Broadway tour is not without its risky moments either
 of another kind. After a meeting in Biloela, in Queensland,
a big kangaroo shattered the window of the car in which Shorten was
travelling, spraying glass over him. Then there was the day at
Rooty Hill, western Sydney, when he addressed a roadside meeting of
steel workers. It was only when he'd finished that someone noticed
the fat brown snake just behind where the men had been sitting.
Political players are more used to the two-legged variety of snakes
in the grass.

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